


Zero to Sixty

by dovingbird



Series: Expand My Heart [1]
Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Happy Ending, Happy Healthy Polyamory, M/M, Miscommunication, New Relationship, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Pining, Polyamory discussion, bdsm undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:31:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7430149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A filled commission.</p><p>The crush that Brian develops for Arin takes him completely by surprise. For one thing, it's inconvenient because Arin clearly has a crush on Danny instead. For another thing, it's difficult even without that because Arin happens to be married to a supposedly jealous wife, even with the idea of polyamory being on the table. What's an old guy to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zero to Sixty

All in all, Brian knew exactly what was coming, but was he prepared? No, of course not. He was technically a scientist, yes, and a fucking boss one at that, but while that meant he should be perfectly able to assess potential variables of a situation and ready for them accordingly, he sometimes had a surprising lack of ability to do so.  
  
Which is precisely why when his car broke down in the parking lot of the Grumps office, all he could do was slowly lean forward and rest his head on the steering wheel.  
  
His baby. His baby has finally given up, he thinks with a sigh. After a million jumps, a million stalls, a million prayers to every deity the world knows, including beautiful Science herself, she's decided that it's time to begin her eternal rest. And just in time for lunch. Of course.  
  
“You sweet thing,” Brian whispers, lips moving against the steering wheel in a caress. “You fucking useless thing. Really? On the day that I was finally going to get some pho?”  
  
A cheerful horn sounds from across him, and Brian lifts his head just enough to see the full car – Arin, Suzy, Danny, Barry, Ross – all sitting and waiting for him to drive. He shakes his head, waves weakly, and ducks his head again with a huff.  
  
His phone rings, and he answers it and presses it to his ear without looking. “Hello?”  
  
“Ross wants to know if you're dead,” Danny's voice says.  
  
“Are you dead?!” Ross shouts in the background.  
  
Brian closes his eyes. “Dead from heartache. My car's gone.”  
  
“Dude, we can just jump it.”  
  
“No way, man. No, I can feel when it's all over.”  
  
“You're such a fucking...what? No,” Danny says to someone in the background, “he says his car's dead, and he doesn't want us to jump it.”  
  
“Does he want pho or not?” Arin says distantly.  
  
“Pho is possibly the only thing that could make this better,” Brian replies.  
  
There's the sound of a door slamming, of Danny laughing, and Brian glances up to see Suzy practically lofting the console and dropping into the driver's seat. Possibly the least elegant thing he's ever seen her do outside of filming an ad. Arin, meanwhile, is already on his way to the driver's side of Brian's car, and Brian watches him as Arin pauses at the window, leans down, and gently taps it with one finger.  
  
Brian rolls down the window. “Yeah?”  
  
“Just wanted to say that we'll miss you now that you're dead.”  
  
“I'm not dead,” Brian says, “just the car.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Arin says dryly, eyes flicking over how Brian's still slumped forward. “Real convincing.” He's quiet for a moment. “So the rest of them are gonna go get food, but I, uh, wanted to know if you wanted to go look at cars or something?”  
  
Brian blinks. “Instead of pho?”  
  
Arin grins. “Yeah.”  
  
Brian frowns as magnificently as he can, which, let's be real, is pretty damn magnificently. “How're we gonna get there?”  
  
There's a tinkling as Arin lifts his hand and shows some keys. “Barry's car.”  
  
Brian squints. “Why do you get to drive Barry's car?”  
  
Arin glances at the other car, then shrugs as he looks back. “I mean, whatever, I drive it all the time when me and Dan go out, no big deal. You up for it or not?”  
  
Brian sits up and sighs. “Can they buy me food and bring some back?”  
  
“Yeah, dude, no problem.”  
  
“Okay, just-”  
  
“I'll go tell them.”  
  
“Wait!” But even as Brian calls it out, reaching for his wallet, Arin keeps walking, and he leans through the window to say something to Suzy, reaching into his pocket and shoving something in her hand. By the time he comes back to Brian's car with a smile, Brian's staring. “I've got money, so I should probably-”  
  
“Nah, it's on me.” Arin opens the door, and Brian's slumping in such a way that he almost falls straight out, barely catches himself, and Arin laughs, eyes sparkling. “Good job.”  
  
“Listen.” But Suzy's already driving out of the parking lot, and Brian huffs. “She doesn't even know what I want.”  
  
“Your usual, right?” Arin steps back while Brian climbs out and shuts the door. “I remembered it and told her, no problem.”  
  
Brian frowns at Arin for a moment, brow furrowed, arms crossed over his chest. A few seconds of silence slip by. “Thanks, but you, uh, you really didn't have to buy my lunch.”  
  
“You're about to buy a car,” Arin says slowly, like Brian needs help understanding. “I can put out a little money just to buy you some delicious pho.”  
  
Just the thought of the meal almost makes Brian's eyes go starry. “All right, let's get the looking over with so I can eat.”  
  
“Atta boy.”  
  
  
~~  
  
  
The thing about Arin is that he's a goader. It's kind of funny, really, because everyone pinpoints Brian as being the one to guide people into doing things, but that's not ever been quite accurate. Brian, to put it simply, dominates people into things. He knows that they don't want to do it because of potential embarrassment, but Brian knows they'll emerge unscathed with more views than they could possibly dream of – and hey, more views equals more money – and uses that as an excuse to press them maybe not-so-gently into it.  
  
Arin, however, is the kind of guy who sees someone who doesn't want to do something and who very slowly and subtly makes them realize that maybe they want to do it after all. He makes them think it's their idea all along. He goads.  
  
It's admirable, actually. When it's not focused on Brian.  
  
“I'm not gonna just buy a car today, Arin,” Brian says with a roll of his eyes where they're parked in front of the dealership.  
  
“What?” Arin asks. “Why not? You need a car, yours is currently broken down in front of the office-”  
  
“Because you don't just go into a dealership and buy a car immediately,” Brian says patiently. “You've gotta shop around, figure out exactly what kind of car you want, what make, what model, what suits your needs. You've gotta research so that you can-”  
  
Arin interrupts from where he's looking at his phone. “Dude, did you know there's a Porsche model called Spyder-with-a-y?”  
  
Brian stares out the window. And slowly drops his head back against the headrest.  
  
He doesn't buy a Spyder. Those are fucking expensive. But he does suddenly find himself out in the parking lot of the dealership with new keys in his hand staring down at an attractive, sleek car that's just waiting to be loved and pampered.  
  
Arin steps up behind him and slings an arm loosely around his shoulder. “We did this, Brian,” he says. “We created her.”  
  
“Our baby.” Brian lifts his other hand and holds it out, and Arin presses their palms against each other. “Together.”  
  
“I get visitation on weekends,” Arin says with a grin. “Right?”  
  
“Babe,” Brian says, clicking his tongue. “You act like we're not already married.”  
  
Arin laughs and steps away, dropping his arms, and Brian smiles, feeling particularly proud of himself for taking the joke to the level that even Arin “D-Club” Hanson is afraid to carry on with physical contact. “All right, c'mon, hubby, let's head back. Got shit to do.”  
  
“Oh yes, my favorite.”  
  
The car handles like a dream, all in all. Wasn't a bad purchase. Comes highly reviewed. Not too expensive to hemorrhage money out of Brian's wallet every month. But as he drives back, mind focused, slightly overly cautious about how sensitive these new brakes are, he realizes that he's thinking about the way that Arin smiled at him with his arms crossed as Brian signed all of the necessary paperwork to make the car his own. A knowing smile? Proud of how he worked to get Brian to buy this car today?  
  
Of how he convinced Brian that it was what he wanted?  
  
Respectable, Brian decides as he pulls in next to his old, dead car. It's very respectable. Just like how Arin waits for him in the parking lot before they both go inside together.  
  
“I blame this on you,” Brian says, looking at Arin from the corner of his eye.  
  
“Blame what?” Arin asks with a grin. “Blame me for having some fun in your old age? For buying a cool car instead of just a cheap, affordable one? For actually making you spend money on more than just books and tech?”  
  
Brian makes a soft huffing sound. “You think you'd have a little more respect for someone with a PHD-”  
  
“I don't give a fuck about your PHD,” Arin says, laughing, and he grabs the front door and holds it open for him, bowing dramatically. “Age before beauty.”  
  
Brian takes one step forward, leans it to be eye to eye with Arin, and drops his voice. “Fuck you.”  
  
Arin grins widely back, not even flinching, and as Brian walks past him into the office building Arin calls after him. “Anytime, old man.”  
  
Brian rolls his eyes as he follows. “Name the day, I'll bring the butt plug!” he calls back, then looks over, seeing the way the woman at the front desk is staring at him with wide eyes. “Sorry,” he says, dipping his head. He doesn't catch up to Arin until he's already back in the office, until Suzy is moving around Arin with a bag, and Brian takes it - “Thanks, Suze” - without looking away from Arin, immediately snarking “If I get slapped with a sexual harassment suit by that poor girl at the front desk, you're paying for the costs.”  
  
“Tell her to get in line,” Danny says, companionably shoving Brian as he walks past, and Brian flips him off behind his back, full of love, before he moves to the edge of the main room.  
  
Brian sags into the chair at the little table they typically take their meals at when the joint kitchen area is full, unpacking the takeout. It still feels warm when he touches the container. A blessing, really, since he feels sore from the errand today. Just another dismal reminder that he's getting old. He could use a heating pad, but the noodles will do.  
  
He thinks about it as he starts sampling the pho, sipping the broth and letting his fingers warm up to the chopsticks again. He doesn't...okay, he doesn't regret buying the car. He's settled on that. But he does feel odd about spending as much money as he did given that he recently turned forty-one. Isn't it high time for him to have a midlife crisis? Is this going to trigger something so that he starts throwing money everywhere? Is he going to find some random college student and become his sugar daddy?  
  
Nah. Because that last part, at least, would imply that Brian is lonely. And Brian certainly isn't lonely. He doesn't just sit around pouting while his life wastes away. No, he practically lives in this office. He's glued to his keyboard when he gets home, whether or not Danny's there to brainstorm new NSP song ideas with him. And with the recent discussion of Starbomb's third album, he's just as likely to have Arin there too, honestly.  
  
Speak of the devil, Brian thinks when Arin suddenly drops into the chair across from him. “Can I help you?” Brian asks dryly.  
  
“I'm here for my pho,” Arin says, his lips quirking.  
  
“Oh, are you?” Brian asks. He lifts his eyebrows, sees Arin's grin widen a little. “You think you deserve it?”  
  
“I think I deserve a commission for helping with the car, yeah.”  
  
Brian stares. Arin stares back.  
  
Arin slowly leans forward, hand out.  
  
“I will cut your hand off,” Brian says, “and shove it up your asshole.”  
  
“You wouldn't do that,” Arin says, grin nearly splitting his face. “You love me.”  
  
“I love pho.”  
  
“Uh-huh.” Arin plucks a nice, chunky, fatty piece of beef off of Brian's spoon while Brian watches. He eats it.  
  
“Bastard,” Brian says, an edge to his tone, and Arin throws his head back with a laugh. “And here I was gonna give you a nice ride in my shiny new car.”  
  
“Yeah?” Arin asks, eyes widening as he sits a little straighter.  
  
Honestly Brian hadn't been intending to before he said the words, just threw them out in the name of banter, but Arin looks so pleased by the idea that he pauses. “...I was,” he says. “But you fucked that.”  
  
“I never fuck anything up.” Arin says it so confidently, grinning so widely, that Brian quirks a brow. “Not for real. It can always be fixed.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“There's always something that people want.” Arin lifts his chin. “So what do you want?”  
  
Brian stares at him. And then he speaks. “That piece of beef you ate.”  
  
Arin nods. “Cool, hold on,” he says, reaching a finger toward his mouth, and Brian's content to sit and watch, smirking, his latent sadism coming out, and Arin finally bursts out laughing, slamming his hand on the table. “You fucker, you were really gonna let me-”  
  
“Yep, still waiting.”  
  
“Fuck you.” And then Arin sits there with his chin on one of his fists, watching Brian.  
  
Arin's typically pretty good about being up front with what he wants unless he's pursuing a gag, so Brian slurps some more noodles and beef now, waiting. Nothing comes. Brian finally bites the bullet. “So what's really up?”  
  
Arin chuckles, fiddling with his hair. “I literally just want a ride in your car.”  
  
That is absolutely a lie and both of them know it. Brian smiles slowly, lifting his brows. “Uh-huh.” There's gotta be more to it. He sifts through things in his mind. “To where?”  
  
“Nowhere in particular.”  
  
Lie number two. Brian nods sagely. “I see.”  
  
Arin stares at him with that little smirk he gets when he knows he's been found out, when he's trying to figure out if he can still salvage the situation. Brian sees it all the time when Arin's trying to play various practical jokes on Dan. “So Brian, I know where you live.”  
  
“What the fuck kind of segue is that?” Brian asks before he slurps up more broth, lets the flavors explode on his tongue.  
  
“It's not, it's just.” Arin pauses. “So there's this friend of mine.”  
  
“Here we go, the root of what you want.” Brian shakes his head and grins. “Could've just come out with it. What's up?”  
  
“I have a friend,” Arin presses, “and he lives in your apartment complex, and I kind of need a ride to go see him.”  
  
“You own a car,” Brian says in case Arin needs the reminder.  
  
“Yeah, but Suzy's got plans that night too, so she's gonna take it, and-”  
  
“And so there's things like Ubers in the world.”  
  
Arin touches his chest, eyes wide and affronted. “Brian. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to make excuses _not_ to see me.”  
  
Brian rolls his eyes. “All right, dude, whatever, so you need a ride.”  
  
“Yeah, just to your place from the office. I can walk over to his apartment.”  
  
“Okay?” Brian waits for the rest.  
  
The rest doesn't come. “So can I catch a ride with you next Tuesday?”  
  
Brian waits. He stares. And Arin stares back. Neither of them blink. “...yeah, sure, after work?”  
  
“Yeah, dude. I'll pay gas.”  
  
“Whatever.” Brian slurps a few more noodles up noisily, eyes not moving from Arin's, and he feels a sense of accomplishment when he sees Arin grin in response. “It's literally just me driving home. I don't need gas money.” Like he'd take it from Arin anyway. Arin's a cool guy. He works his ass off harder than anyone else in the office. He deserves every cent he gets, probably deserves even more. “Need a ride home too?”  
  
“Nah,” Arin says too easily, his chin in his hands, looking across the room. “I'll get Suzy to come pick me up when she's done.”  
  
There's a quiet sound, and it takes Brian a second to realize that Arin's tapping his foot on the floor, that he's been doing it for a few seconds now. And that's odd. That's a Ross thing to do, when he's full of energy, when he took his ADHD meds a little later than he intended to. Not an Arin thing. Arin's cool, calm, and collected. Brian doesn't think Arin has a stressed bone in his body. If a masseuse got his hands on Arin Hanson, he'd probably throw his hands up and call him a miracle before thirty seconds had passed.  
  
“You okay?” Brian asks slowly, hesitantly, and doesn't get an immediate response. “Arin?”  
  
Arin flicks his eyes up, blinks, then flashes a smile. “Yeah, dude.” He laughs, but it sounds forced. “Just got my mind on the shit I've gotta do today.” He shoves his chair back, the creak of the legs loud and raucous on the tile. “Thanks again, though. Can I get you anything? A drink? Napkins?”  
  
“I'm fine,” Brian says. _But I don't think you are._  
  
As Arin sweeps out of the room, Brian watches him. The only sound is the broth dripping from his spoon.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
By the time Tuesday night rolls around, Brian and Arin are the last ones in the office. Barry left early to run some errands, Ross left on time to get dinner with Holly, and Suzy and Danny left a little late after Suzy lost her keys and Danny assisted in the search, but Arin is busy moving erratically around the office while Brian leans against the back of the couch and watches. He can't even make significant sense of Arin's movements. He's haphazard, picking up one thing before putting it back down, and he'll disappear for thirty seconds and come out with a new shirt on, then new pants, and finally with his hair pulled back.  
  
It culminates with Arin standing in the middle of the room, staring at the wall, and Brian clears his throat. “You need anything else?”  
  
Arin jumps at Brian's words and immediately dons an easy smile that Brian's not at all convinced by. “Pfft, no, I've been waiting on you.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Brian says dully. “Well. Sorry to have kept you waiting, twinkletoes.”  
  
Arin scoffs as Brian grabs his keys. “What's that mean?” he asks, following him out the door.  
  
“Means you can't sit still. Makes me think something's wrong.”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
“Why don't I believe you?”  
  
“'Cuz you're a scrub.”  
  
“A scrub,” Brian says, pronouncing each word crisply.  
  
“Yeah.” Arin holds the door leading outside for Brian, and when Brian stands there watching Arin with his arms crossed over his chest, Arin rolls his eyes and goes outside first.  
  
Brian follows behind Arin to his car, deactivates the alarm so the doors unlock and Arin can climb inside, and when Brian settles in beside him he stares for a moment without starting the car, even in the stifling California heat that has his car baking. “You're not, like, on drugs or anything, are you?”  
  
Arin barks out a laugh. “Nah. Why, do you want some?” he asks, leering.  
  
Brian waves him off as he starts his car. “Whatever you're on, I don't want any of it.”  
  
They chat absently about the upcoming videos they want to make, the next Starbomb album that they need to discuss a little more in depth – a song about Bloodborne, for example, absolutely needs to be in the works after the fucking ridiculously long playlist that came out of it – but eventually they fall into silence, Brian watching the road and Arin staring out the window, the radio a quiet interlude of music in between commercials that Brian tunes out. Eventually he hears the sound again, the rustle of Arin's pants leg as he bounces his leg, and Brian looks over at him at a stoplight.  
  
It's kind of weird to be concerned about Arin. Brian will worry about Danny any day of the week, will focus on how he isn't sleeping or isn't eating or isn't washing himself when he gets in a creative fervor, but Arin doesn't fall into those spells in such a worrisome way. And he has Suzy nearby more often than not, someone to worry and fuss over him. He doesn't ever seem to need anyone else's attention. He captures it easily, yes – he's Egoraptor – but he doesn't _need_ it.  
  
But here he is, clearly anxious, clearly worried, and Brian's the only one he's got, so...  
  
“So you and your friend watching the game tonight?”  
  
“Game?” Arin asks distantly, still staring out the window.  
  
“Yeah. Sportsball. Whatever.”  
  
“Dunno.”  
  
Okay. Brian nods slowly. “Cool. Are you, like...gonna maybe watch a movie?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“Perform a Satanic ritual?”  
  
“Oh, absolutely,” Arin says. “Trolling the neighborhood for a virgin sacrifice.”  
  
Brian pulls forward when the light turns green, clicking on his signal to turn into his apartment complex. “Well, you know where I am.”  
  
“For the sacrifice?” Arin asks, finally turning his head and wiggling his eyebrows. “Ready to finally sacrifice your purity for the greater good?”  
  
“Only when properly seduced.” Brian parks and looks over at Arin again, the both of them sitting silently in the car. “Did you wanna come in and get some water or anything?” he asks awkwardly, because he's terrible at actually expressing concern, is better with humor, but he can't find the humor here, not when he's still confused about the genuine worry sitting in his stomach.  
  
“Nah,” Arin says, shaking his head, his eyes a little distant already. “Just gonna go ahead and head over, I think.” He opens the door, but stays in the car. “Thanks for the ride. You got any plans tonight?”  
  
Brian shrugs. “Typical stuff, y'know, put on my superhero costume, go out and save the city.”  
  
Arin chuckles. “As Ninja Brian?”  
  
“If you think Ninja Brian would ever save the city for anything less than getting to suck Danny Sexbang's dick...”  
  
“Saving the city for beej. Danny Sexbang's a lucky man.” Arin climbs out of the car just as Brian's flicking his eyes over to him again and quirking a brow. It takes Brian a second before he gets out too, and by then Arin's already heading down the sidewalk. “Later, dude! Thanks again!”  
  
“Anytime!” Brian calls back dryly as he locks the door and heads toward his apartment, telling himself that he's not going to look over his shoulder to make sure Arin gets wherever he's going safely. He's a grown man, even if he is over a decade younger than Brian.  
  
It's a slow night that Brian settles into. He doesn't have any plans, doesn't have many friends he can call up and hang out with on a whim – anyone close to his own age, such as former business partners, are either overseas or have families of their own that they need to give their attention to, and anyone younger, such as his coworkers, already no doubt have plans of their own. But that's all right. It suits Brian. As he considered before, he is certainly not lonely.  
  
He does trail back and forth in front of his bookshelf for ten minutes, though, before he finally makes a selection. He plops down on the couch, turns his lamp to the brightness he wants, slides on his reading glasses...and promptly rereads the first page a good five times before he huffs and sets the book aside.  
  
It's not that he's worried about Arin. That's not it. But he was acting fucking weird, okay?  
  
There's a knock at the door and Brian starts, then clambers off the couch. He moves maybe a little more urgently than he should toward it, already palming his phone in his pocket to see if he missed any texts, but when he opens the door he's stunned to see Danny.  
  
“Hey?” Danny says with a grin after a few seconds of staring.  
  
“Uh, hey.” Brian steps aside and Danny saunters in like he owns the place, as he usually does. “What's up?”  
  
Danny sends Brian a look over his shoulder, lips quirked and brow lifted. “Thought I'd stop by?” He immediately starts scanning the apartment. “Why, do you have someone here?”  
  
“No, gross,” Brian says, trying to force the dryness into his tone.  
  
“Then why are you, uh, acting like I shouldn't be here?”  
  
_Because I was expecting Arin with an emergency._ Brian clears his throat. “Just, y'know, didn't think you had the car, that's all. I knew Barry was busy.”  
  
“Yeah, but now he's not.” Danny kicks off his giant shoes and faces Brian, his eyes literally sparkling. “I had a breakthrough about that song we were struggling with, and I wanted to work on it with you.” He hesitates. “Unless now's a bad time. Should I have called? I should've called.”  
  
“No, dude, it's fine, seriously.” Brian pats Danny on the arm, then tips his head toward the hallway, leading the way to his office. “You can drop in anytime.”  
  
“Gross,” Danny says. “Just promise me you'll put a, a sock on the door or something if you're...eww.”  
  
Brian glances at Danny with a smirk. “What, you don't wanna join in?”  
  
“Dude,” Danny says with one of his easy, bubbly laughs. “Nice of you to offer, but I really don't wanna cross the streams of dick.”  
  
“Your loss.”  
  
Brian settles behind the keyboard while Danny pulls out his phone and shows him the notes he jotted down, messy and full of typos. It's charming, like most things about Danny, the visible evidence of his excitement, the fact that he stood shifting his weight awkwardly in his own living room until Barry got home and could let him borrow the car so that he and Brian could immediately make more progress.  
  
This is why Danny is his business partner and best friend, Brian decides, laying down a few chords that they'd discussed the progression of the last time they worked on this NSP song. He has the infectious energy they need to keep pushing forward and Brian's there to be bolstered by it while he does the heavy lifting.  
  
An hour goes by in seconds, elbow to elbow with Danny at the keyboard, and Brian's amping him up, picking at the well-acquainted joke that is Brian's homosexuality paired with Danny's heterosexuality and Brian seeing how many awful and punny pick up lines he can throw at Danny before Dan's literally on the floor laughing. Brian gets halfway through what he thinks is going to be the real winner, since Danny's already clutching his side, when he hears a very clear knock at the door again.  
  
“You order food?” Brian asks as he hops up, but Danny's still laughing too hard to control his breathing enough to respond, and Brian heads down the hallway, goes for the door, opens it to a very flushed Arin. “Oh.” Every bit of worry goes rushing through Brian's veins again like acid, everything that he forgot singeing his bones, and Brian goes into protection mode. “Dude, you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I just...” Arin trails off, looking over Brian's shoulder, and his eyes get wide. “Oh, oh shit, I-I didn't mean to interrupt.”  
  
“What?” Brian looks over his shoulder, sees Danny coming down the hallway while already wearing a smile. “Interrupt?”  
  
“Hey, dude!” Danny holds his hand high above Brian's head for a high five, and Arin looks more than a little sheepish as he comes up on his toes and answers it with one of his own. “Come to join the party?”  
  
“Party?” Arin asks.  
  
“Yeah, man, just a little shindig with me and the Bri-ster.” Danny slings his arm around Brian's shoulder. “Just having a little fun. You wanna come in?”  
  
Arin stares at Danny with huge eyes, then flicks them to Brian's with a question in them that Brian can't quite interpret. “I mean, y'know, I don't wanna be in the way or whatever.”  
  
Danny wrinkles his brow. “You? In the way? Dude.” Danny bodily drags Brian out of the doorway and gestures inside. “I insist.”  
  
“Nice to see you take control of my apartment,” Brian says dryly before he looks at Arin again. “Seriously, come in, you're fine. We weren't planning a heist or anything, if that's what you're worried about.”  
  
Arin laughs, but it doesn't sound right around the edges, and Brian watches him as he wanders in. “Good. I'd be offended if you were planning one without me.”  
  
Arin looks a bit like a cat who wandered into a house that he doesn't belong to, studying the room with tension in his muscles, not making himself at home in any way. It isn't the first time he's been here. They've worked on Starbomb shit here before more times than Brian can count. But it's the first time Arin's looked like this instead of loose and relaxed.  
  
Brian frowns at his back even as Danny wanders past to the kitchen, going to grab a drink. “Everything okay?” Brian asks again.  
  
“Hmm?” Arin looks at him, then smiles. “Yeah.”  
  
“What happened to your friend?”  
  
Arin shakes his head and laughs. “Plans change, things happen. It's cool, though. I already called a cab, I just, y'know, I thought I'd wait here 'til it got here. If that's cool.”  
  
“Cooler than cool,” Brian says. He feels like an actor who wandered onto the wrong set. “You want something to drink? Food?”  
  
Arin pauses. “Water would be awesome.”  
  
Brian goes to the kitchen to grab some water from the filter in the fridge, and he pauses, looking at Danny, trying to see if Dan sees anything weird about this whole encounter. But no, Danny's looking at his phone while he drinks his soda, just scrolling along, completely unconcerned.  
  
Brian comes back to the living room, gives Arin the water, and watches as Arin takes a mouthful, swishes it around in his mouth, then swallows just before he lets out a long sigh. Silence. Arin glances over, takes in the way Brian is watching him, and grins again. “That's good shit in this heat, man, thanks.”  
  
They're literally talking about the weather. Brian is shit at that. “Any time.”  
  
Maybe he's making things up, Brian thinks as they settle on the couch and Danny wanders in and starts looking through Brian's Netflix. Maybe there's nothing to worry about. He could be reading the signs wrong. Maybe something happened to Arin's friend that Arin just doesn't want to talk about because the thing that happened to the guy is embarrassing or whatever.  
  
He doesn't have time to ask, because Danny and Arin go right from roasting a terrible comedy special to saying their goodbyes when Arin's cab arrives. Brian hops up to give Arin a quick hug right on Danny's heels, and he thinks for a moment that he feels Arin sink against him, but he's gone just as quickly, waving at them before the door shuts behind him.  
  
Danny leaves not long after, his can of soda still on the table, Netflix still open, and Brian is left alone once more.  
  
He tries to read his book again. He gives up. He thumbs open his phone and stares at the screen, stares at his last text to Arin a few days ago – a picture of the new car in the light of a particularly stunning sunset, telling Arin that he'll have to fight Brian with his bare hands to get his visitation rights. He could text him right now. He could make sure everything's okay.  
  
Or he could accept that he's being weird and paranoid about Arin without any real reason to be.  
  
Eventually Brian falls asleep in his own bed, but not before writing and rewriting a hundred texts in his head, trying to figure out which one sounds the least creepily concerned.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“We need to record something,” Brian says the next day.  
  
“Yeah,” Barry replies, his tone just as dull and unfocused as Brian's. “Lemme just finish this edit, just...” Barry waves vaguely before he readjusts his headphones.  
  
Brian hums in affirmation, sitting back in his chair, looking across the room. Arin and Suzy are curled up together on one of the couches. It was Suzy's doing, of course – she went into the Grump room after Arin and Danny had been in there for three straight hours and dragged Arin out with her, announcing cheerfully that it was time to give his eyes a rest before they fell out.  
  
They've been whispering over there for a while, Arin avoiding Suzy's eyes, Suzy occasionally brushing a hand through Arin's hair or thumbing over his cheekbone.  
  
“What do you think we should play?” Brian asks.  
  
Barry mumbles something unintelligible. Brian would be surprised if Barry could even hear him through the headphones, honestly.  
  
“Like, something new?” Brian pauses. “Something weird and retro?”  
  
Barry gives that heavy sigh that's not impatient, exactly, but a clear indicator that he's accepted that he's not gonna get something he's focused on completed. He hooks one of his headphones off of his ear. “I mean, we, we should save the new stuff for Danny and Arin, yeah?”  
  
“I mean, I'm not talking a triple-A title.” No specific game comes to mind, sure, but that probably has something to do with the fact that Arin just tucked his face in Suzy's shoulder and that she seems intent on rocking him gently from side to side. “Just. We got some new games in the other day, right? And haven't divvied them up yet?”  
  
“I don't know about you,” Barry says, rubbing his face, “but I don't really wanna deal with Ross whining if we give him and Danny a game to play that he's already decided he hates just based on the art style.”  
  
Brian shrugs. “I'll do it. I've wrestled bigger, whinier guys than that.”  
  
Barry's quiet for a moment. “Like, in a sex way...?”  
  
Brian snorts. “When you get your PHD, Barry, maybe you'll understand.”  
  
“Oh.” Barry still sounds unfocused. He doesn't comment further. And that suits Brian fine, because now Arin is laughing quietly against Suzy's neck, looking up at her, and when Arin wipes his eyes Brian isn't sure if it's because he's got gross eye crust in them or because he's...crying. But Suzy kisses Arin, a lingering but gentle kiss, and Arin kisses the top of her head in response as he gets up and offers her a hand.  
  
Brian and Arin lock eyes when Arin turns his head, and Brian feels a frisson of electricity through him, a jolt from being caught watching what was clearly a private moment, and Brian looks away immediately. “I'm giving you five minutes, and then I'm carrying you to the recording room.”  
  
“Where you'll ravish me?” Barry asks. It's one of his rare moments of dryness and it shocks a laugh out of Brian.  
  
“Bear, I'll do that anytime,” Brian says as he wiggles his eyebrows. “Five minutes from now, ten minutes from now, fifteen minutes-”  
  
“I can't figure out if you have an incredible refractory period or terrible premature ejaculation.”  
  
“Why not both?”  
  
As they banter Brian is vividly aware of Arin and Suzy walking by him back to their desks. Brian's never been called a coward. Life's too short for that. So he glances over at Arin's desk when he hears him get situated, sees how Arin sags into it a little. For a moment Brian considers getting up, going over, making sure he's okay, and he gets as far as scooting his chair back before Danny is suddenly coming around the corner, pocketing his phone and grinning.  
  
Danny zooms down on Arin like a hornet, pressing his hands into the back of Arin's seat, quietly asking if he wants to go grab a late lunch, and as Arin agrees Brian sinks a little deeper into his chair and clears his throat.  
  
No, yeah, Danny's good for Arin, he'll help him figure stuff out.  
  
Danny and Arin slip out the door and Brian slides his chair over to Barry's. He grabs the back of it and immediately begins scooting back.  
  
“Brian, no, my headphones!” Barry cries.  
  
“Say goodbye to them.” Brian watches Barry somehow manage to get them off and toss them onto his desk before they get pulled out of the headphone jack. “It's kidnapping time.”  
  
“Do you at least have condoms?”  
  
“Maybe,” Brian says, hopping out of his chair, grabbing Barry's arm, and dragging him away. A little recording will get his mind back on track, he hopes.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
When Arin ends up dropping into the seat across from Brian yet again in less than two weeks, Brian is certainly confused. Today there's a heavy list of deadlines hanging over them to get a number of videos recorded before they all head out to a con, which is why they're all eating lunch in the office and in shifts, basically, just whenever they can get time to shove some food in their mouths. Brian's the only one who actually made it to the table to work on some Easy Mac while fielding emails and social media on his iPad.  
  
“Question,” Arin says, not even the slightest bit affected by Brian's frown, “have I been being weird lately?”  
  
Brian takes the time to chew and swallow mostly to see if Arin will get shifty, but no, Arin stares back at him, solid and secure. “What, weirder than usual?”  
  
“Yeah, I mean, like, weird in a unique way, not an Arin way.”  
  
Brian snorts and rolls his eyes. “Are you saying acting like an Arin isn't unique?”  
  
“Acting like an Arin is practically a trademark now,” Arin says with a grin. He's fiddling with his wedding ring, and Brian watches for a few seconds as he chews more macaroni, but Arin doesn't stop. Brian figures he can make him sweat a little more, if that's possible.  
  
Has he been weird? Yeah, a little. Brian remembers how Arin acted when he showed up at Brian's apartment with no warning, how he looked flushed but still pretty normal until he saw Danny and then immediately acted like he'd shot a man or something. And this ring fidgeting, that's...that's actually a little strange too. Brian takes a drink of his soda and then shrugs. “I mean, maybe.”  
  
Arin deflates a little, clearly expecting more, but hey, Brian never said that he was perfectly obliging. “...okay, whatever, just...” Arin waves it off and gets up, crossing the room to grab a granola bar and tear the wrapper open. “I've had some stuff on my mind is all.”  
  
“Stuff,” Brian says, emphasizing the letters a little more than he needs to. “Interesting.”  
  
“Yeah, it really is.” Arin's already turning around, one of his hands waving through the air to help him talk. “Really interesting stuff, like, stuff you don't hear about every day.”  
  
Brian quirks a brow at him. “Are you gonna tell me that you're moonlighting as a secret agent in disguise? Because that's gonna suck for me when I do that heist next week.”  
  
“First of all, we've been over this, you're not doing a heist without me,” Arin says with a sigh. “And second of all, no, just...” He goes quiet and stares at Brian, chewing on his bottom lip, and that's certainly unusual. A sign of nerves, maybe, or anxiety, or stress. Brian sits a little taller and furrows his brow, leaning forward in preparation of whatever Arin has on his mind. “...you're a cool guy, Brian, right?”  
  
“So I've been told,” Brian says slowly. He puts his fork down and tries to figure out if Arin's going to ask him to hide a body. “Is my coolness currently relevant to this discussion? Do I need to go put some sunglasses on?”  
  
“Maybe not yet,” Arin says with what's clearly a forced laugh. “So here's the thing. You know the whole idea that my generation is fucking selfish and self-centered, right?”  
  
“Those are definitely synonyms that old people will use for your generation, yes,” Brian says dryly.  
  
“Well, I maybe kind of prove them right.”  
  
What, the man who owns literal arcade cabinets that cost him thousands of dollars, who has a game room filled with more games and systems that should be possible, who pursued a job where he didn't have to work with anyone unless he liked them enough to hire them, who has complete control over his entire life? Him, selfish? Self-centered? The mere idea is ridiculous, Brian thinks dryly.  
  
It isn't bad to be selfish, Brian decided a long time ago, but being completely unaware that you are is a different thing entirely. Perhaps Arin's come to some conclusions about himself and his lifestyle. “Is that so?” Brian asks when he realizes the silence is stretching out and Arin isn't trying to fill it.  
  
Arin comes around to Brian's side of the table, presses his hands to the surface, and leans down, dropping his voice to a murmur. “Can I tell you something and you not tell anybody else?”  
  
Brian nods slowly. “I mean, as long as you're not hurting anybody else or yourself, then yeah.”  
  
Arin licks his lips and takes a deep breath and says “I'm polyamorous.”  
  
That is definitely a word that Brian should be fully aware of, but it fuzzes up in his mind for a moment, and he stares at Arin as he untangles it. “Like...you have-”  
  
“I have the capacity to have feelings for multiple people at once, yeah.”  
  
Brian's eyes immediately leap down to Arin's ring finger and he frowns, feels his head strain with how much he wrinkles his brow in confusion. “Okay, but...”  
  
“...but what?” Arin asks.  
  
“I...Suzy,” Brian settles for first.  
  
“Yeah.” Arin nods. “She's polyamorous too.”  
  
Brian nods too, but slower. “Ah.” Arin looks like he's probably waiting on something else, but Brian doesn't really know what to say. Okay, so Arin has...the capacity to have an interest in several people, and so does Suzy. “That's...that's very different,” Brian settles on.  
  
“I mean, I guess.” Arin chuckles, but the sound is tinged with nervousness. “We live in California, and things are kind of liberal around here, so I won't necessarily be burned at the stake like I would in, like, the South, but-”  
  
“So, wait, are you...” What's the polite way to phrase this? “...with multiple people right now?”  
  
Arin shakes his head, wincing. “No, I, no, not right now. Right now I'm just with Suzy, because like...” He lifts his hand and wiggles it back and forth, makes a noncommittal sound. “I guess there was almost someone else. Like, the night you drove me to your apartment complex? I was meeting someone there to see if things were gonna maybe take off there, but it never, uh, it didn't go well.”  
  
He remembers how off-center Arin had been, how it felt like barely any time had passed before Arin appeared at his door. “Yeah, I remember that,” Brian says. “Just...no chemistry?”  
  
Arin flashes a grin, the one he uses when he's trying to distract. “I kind of maybe don't wanna talk about it.”  
  
“Okay,” Brian's quick to say. “Yeah, that's fine.” Brian knows how it feels to not wanna discuss things. Brian's gay. Not everyone is ready to hear what you went through, and you're not always ready to confide it, whatever, tough shit. Brian rubs at his beard, looking up at Arin again. “Well, that's...I mean, that's different, but there's nothing wrong with it, right? As long as Suzy knows too?” He doesn't exactly want to start a lecture on consent here in the middle of the office when Arin's already trying to keep his voice low, when he clearly made an attempt to corner Brian over here far away from everyone else, but still, Suzy is a doll. Anything that might hurt her is the opposite of okay in Brian's book.  
  
“Yeah, she knows. She's actually got another partner of her own right now too,” Arin says, grin widening.  
  
“Well. Good for her,” Brian says. Is it anyone he knows, he finds himself wondering. Or is it anyone Arin even knows? They're both painfully in love, are always around each other, but surely they both have their own lives too that don't completely overlap, especially if they're both interested in other people.  
  
That's what hits the switch in Brian's mind, really, the fact that Arin came to Brian about it of all people. Not Ross, who he's known since they were teenagers. Not Barry, who he's worked with longer than any of them in this office. And not...not Danny, who's his purported best friend.  
  
“Am I the only one you've told here? Besides Suzy?” Brian asks, his voice barely above a whisper.  
  
Arin bites his bottom lip again and nods.  
  
What the fuck does that even mean? He and Arin, they're not like strangers, but they're definitely not best friends. They're coworkers. If anything, Arin is Brian's boss.  
  
Something shifts in Brian's chest, ill at ease, and he decides to ask as he starts working on his current hypothesis. “Arin, not that I'm not grateful that you trust me enough to confide something like this in me, but...why didn't you tell Danny?”  
  
Several things happen at once. One, Arin's eyes get wide and his jaw drops and he looks a little pale. Two, there's a clatter in the main room followed by Suzy shouting out “Fuck!” Three, Arin turns his head and immediately moves away from the table, nearly at a jog.  
  
“You okay, babe?” Arin asks, his arm already around Suzy before Brian can even get to his feet.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, her high voice lifted even more in pain. “Just twisted my ankle. Fucking, these shoes, I knew I shouldn't wear them today.”  
  
“Suzy, please,” Ross says in the distance as Arin helps Suzy walk slowly to the couch. “You've gotta be careful. If you're not here looking pretty, I'm gonna have to do it instead, and I don't have the legs for those heels.”  
  
“Concern noted, Ross,” she calls back to him.  
  
Brian moves to grab a plastic bag and starts filling it with ice from the fridge, brow furrowed. Clearly not a conversation that he and Arin are going to get back to right away. And maybe it's for the best. Arin's face didn't exactly scream that he wanted to answer Brian's question enthusiastically.  
  
So Brian wraps the bag of ice in a towel and makes his way to the couch, where Barry's already on his knees looking for swelling and Arin's pulling Suzy's hair off of her neck that's already getting damp with sweat in her pain. Brian passes the bag to Arin, and Arin takes it, their eyes meeting for a moment before Arin looks away and drops down to put the ice on her ankle.  
  
Doesn't matter. Brian can pretty much confirm all on his intuition that Arin didn't tell Danny for one reason and one reason alone.  
  
Arin is interested in Danny. And he's clearly trying to get Brian's approval and encouragement before he moves forward.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
That weekend, Brian is still thinking about it while he flips absently through channels during what seems like an endless stream of commercials.  
  
Because of course Arin would have a crush on Danny, of course, _of course_ , they inseparable in the office, they're inseparable when everyone goes on vacation together, they're inseparable even when one of them needs to go to the bathroom, just...it all fits together perfectly.  
  
What Arin plans to do about the whole aggressively no homo Avidan thing, Brian doesn't know, but...well, now that he thinks about it, Danny's actually chilled out a little about that. He's gone from barely being able to share a couch with a guy to full on cuddling with Arin if the mood ever seems to strike them.  
  
Which is...interesting. And telling.  
  
And maybe Arin's got less work to do to catch Danny's eye than he thinks.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Brian is in the shower next Wednesday, scrubbing at his hair, thinking of the best way to suggest to Arin that maybe he should check and see if Danny is...you know, maybe not-straight anymore. Because as far as Brian, the bandmate and best friend for the longest period of time, knows, Danny is still super into ladies.  
  
Maybe Arin's an exception, though? Danny certainly leans into him more now. He'll spend hours just staring at Arin, if he gets the chance. And hell, maybe Arin would be happy with a relationship without sex if Danny _does_ get squicked out by whatever equipment Arin has going on.  
  
He's probably got a dick, right? Brian's not in the business to assume, and God knows he's been with several dudes that didn't have dicks in his lifetime, but...  
  
Arin had the D-Club, though, so his equipment's pretty clearly stated there, Brian decides as he soaps up his body, his face, his beard. He's supposed to have the brontosaurus thing going on, right?  
  
It takes Brian a few minutes to realize he's been standing in the shower with soap dripping off of him while he considers what Arin looks like naked, and just as he's established that he's probably soft and remarkable, Brian ducks under the water and tries to salvage the soap that's dried on his skin.  
  
What matters is what Danny thinks of Arin naked. Or, hell, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it just matters if Danny wants to cuddle with him or kiss him. Arin's probably got a really soft, warm body for cuddles, so that's bound to thrill Danny. And Arin has a shapely mouth too, and he's careful to keep his facial hair trimmed to an attractive length, so there'd probably never be any accidental beard hair in Danny's mouth from kisses.  
  
Brian closes his eyes to rinse his face and catches a vivid image of Arin leaning into Danny for a kiss, eyes shut and mouth lightly pursed and skin flushed in anticipation.  
  
Well, Brian thinks as he quickly opens his eyes, shuts off the water, tugs the towel off of the shower curtain rod, Danny could definitely do worse than Arin Hanson. Definitely.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
There's an issue, though, okay, just, normally if anyone had a crush on anyone around the office that could actually go places, Brian would immediately talk to Danny about it. Danny's Brian's best friend, obviously. Danny's the guy that Brian talks to about everything. Danny's the one Brian teases if he has a crush and vice versa.  
  
So what does he do when someone has a crush on Danny and Brian can't be open with him about it?  
  
He could be, of course. Open about it. He could tell Danny right now. Brian could pretend he's not sitting on his ass on the couch on a Saturday for the fourth week in a row. He could tell Danny and Danny could tell Brian if he had feelings for Arin so that this whole business could just get cleared up, okay?  
  
It's just, it can't be good for Arin to go without any indication of if his feelings were reciprocated, all right? That's all it is. And Brian knows Danny too, he's known him for longer than he's known Arin, and he knows how to ease into the whole conversation about this. He can get Arin laid, all right? Or loved. Or whatever he wants.  
  
What does Arin want?  
  
And why does Brian care?  
  
  
~~  
  
  
His answer comes the next day, on Sunday night, when he's laying in bed and telling himself that tomorrow he's going to make sure and finagle it so that Danny ends up next to Arin when they all go out to lunch. He can even box them in if they get a big booth at a restaurant. Shove Danny in the corner, put Arin next to him, and then Brian can cap the end so that neither of them can escape, so they're forced to cuddle and accept what's going on between them.  
  
And if they're shy about cuddling, Brian can help with that too, because he can just aggressively slide over until they're pressed together with nowhere to run.  
  
It's what's best, really, especially once Arin relaxes, settles in, starts that charm that he's known for, because Danny will be hopeless to resist. Is Arin mostly known for his goofy side? Yes, on camera. But he's slowly building his own empire through his intellect, his business savvy, his ability to improvise in every area of his life, and all before he's even thirty.  
  
He could become a very powerful man one day, and it would be good for someone like Danny to get in early, Brian decides absently, because anyone who didn't find Arin attractive was missing out. He's soft, he's funny, he's brilliant, he's charismatic, he's caring, he has fucking great skin and hair, a fantastic ass-  
  
Wait. Wait, okay, no, try that again.  
  
He's a fantastic artist, he can write very well, he has a voice that can be very low and distracting-  
  
Okay, wait, this isn't funny.  
  
Brian rolls onto his back and asks himself if he's brave. Last week he might have said yes, Brian is brave, but not tonight. Tonight he's just fucking stubborn, even though there is something anxious nipping at his gut, something nervous in his fingers, and so he forces himself to close his eyes and consider a thought experiment, mainly Arin as not just a mogul or a friend, but a man.  
  
Just seconds of thinking about Arin's face, his body, and his voice has Brian's blood rushing a little faster.  
  
It doesn't mean anything, Brian thinks as he flicks his eyes to the ceiling again, staring at how the moon casts over it. Brian is a perfectly healthy man, and not only that, but he accepted years ago that he leans into a hypersexual category. He'll fuck anyone that's enthusiastically willing and consenting, no hesitation. Thinking about Arin in that light doesn't mean anything, just that...just that Brian would fuck him if given the chance, okay? No big deal.  
  
And he could put that aside for Danny.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
On Monday, Brian is miserable. He makes half-hearted attempts at dick jokes on NSP's Twitter, but they're subpar, and he knows it's because he keeps looking across the office at Arin and feeling the dreaded pitter-patter of his heart in response. It's fucking ridiculous. Brian is over forty. He doesn't have time to be realizing new and devastating crushes on people. He could keel over and die at any second.  
  
But it's here anyway. So it's not just wanting to know what Arin's brontosaurus dick would feel like in his mouth. There's more to it than that. It's wanting to know what Arin's cheek would feel like to press a quick kiss to. It's wanting to know how their hands would fit together.  
  
It's fucking gay as shit, just like him, and Brian sinks into his chair a little more and scowls at the screen.  
  
The office is quiet for once, focusing on their quickly approaching deadlines, and when Suzy and Barry and Arin disappear to record, Brian is left listening to Danny go make some strange snack in the kitchen nook and, eventually, realizing that Ross is staring at him. Brian turns his head and quirks a brow.  
  
“Dude,” Ross says with more care than he's maybe ever used in his life, “are you aware that you look like you're gonna eat your computer?”  
  
Brian doesn't feel like playing today. “This is a monitor, Ross, not a computer.”  
  
“Whatever.” Ross waves it off. “You look scary.”  
  
Brian stares.  
  
“Scarier than usual.”  
  
Brian blinks slowly. “So you think it's a good idea to distract me so I eat you instead?”  
  
Ross points at him and flashes a grin. “Actually, I think that's a terrible idea.”  
  
“And yet...?”  
  
Ross blinks. His smile falters a little as he waves his hand through the air in slow circles, trying to summon his thoughts. “And yet...I, uh...worry about the...nutrition you'd get from both the, uh, the computer and...me?”  
  
Brian stares a little longer. When Ross's smile widens again, baring every tooth he has as he looks for validation, Brian turns his head and props his chin up on his fist while he scrolls down his Twitter feed. “I'm having a shitty day, Ross.”  
  
“Well, whatever, we all have those. So why the scary face?”  
  
Of course he doesn't expect immediate sympathy from Ross, but he feels the bite in his gut anyway, feels the frustration, also curiously feels the need to choke him out. “My face is scary because I'm having a shitty day, and when little Australian boys bother me, I might lash out at them.”  
  
“Aw, Bri!” Ross wheels his chair closer and bumps it into his desk - “Oops” - before he scrambles to face him, and even from the corner of his eye Brian can tell that smile is back. “Brian, I'm your favorite in this whole office, don't even. You fed me pudding.”  
  
“I can also feed you your own intestines.”  
  
Silence. Ross seems to contemplate this threat. “...that doesn't make any sense, my intestines are already inside of me.”  
  
Brian turns his head. “They don't have to be.”  
  
Ross blinks. “That's creepy, Brian.”  
  
Brian waves dramatically through the air in a seated faux bow. Welcome to his life.  
  
“...you're...you're actually upset, aren't you?”  
  
“Well, no shit!” Brian snaps. “I only said it twice already, Jesus, Ross.”  
  
“Hey!” Ross sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “You can't blame me for thinking you're joking! You're never upset!” His voice cracks on the last sentence, and it's absurd enough that it actually makes Brian snort and roll his eyes as he looks back at the screen. “...d'you wanna talk about it?” Ross hedges.  
  
“That sounds like the worst idea I've ever heard,” Brian mutters.  
  
A pause. “Is it about a guy?”  
  
Brian slowly turns his head and squints at Ross.  
  
“I'm right, aren't I? You're having boy problems.”  
  
Brian opens his mouth, closes it, then tries again. “How can you be so...so clueless about so many things, and so on the money about the rest?”  
  
Ross shrugs, doesn't look even mildly offended. “Dunno. It's how it's always been.” He grins up at him. “They say vegemite's good for the brain.”  
  
“Literally no one says that, Ross.”  
  
Ross scoots closer and their chair arms bump against each other, jostling Brian out of position at his desk. “So? Tell me about the boy.”  
  
Brian goes for the obscene route. It'll probably distract him. “I sucked his dick and now he won't call me.”  
  
“Well!” Ross's voice cracks again. “Well, that. That sounds, uh. Par for the course?”  
  
“Good try,” Brian says, clicking through Twitter again.  
  
“No, listen, I'll try again, umm...it's not you, Brian. It's him.”  
  
Brian's lips quirk at the edges in a smile. “Better try. You're improving.”  
  
“Yeah!” Ross gives himself a celebratory fist pump. But then he looks at Brian and his expression changes again, softens to something Brian sees so rarely that he can barely identify it, that it takes him a long moment to see the genuine caring in Ross's expression. “Here's the thing, just...look, I know I give shit advice, but if you need someone to listen? I can do that. Maybe.”  
  
“Maybe if I put some duct tape on your mouth,” Brian says dryly, but his smile widens. “We'll give it a try sometime.”  
  
Ross points at him. “That's too kinky for me. I'm out.” He skids his chair away, and Brian chuckles as he looks back at his screen.  
  
Would he confide in Ross about this? Probably not. Scratch that, _absolutely_ not., not with the way that Ross can't keep a surprise to save his life. But Ross isn't a bad guy, and it's...maybe it's nice to know that Brian isn't alone, isn't just sitting here being upset while no one else cares enough to notice the signs.  
  
Maybe that'll be enough to help him get over this, right? He's over forty. He's had a lot of crushes, a lot of feelings, a lot of relationships. He knows how to parse through them now, how to nip them in the bud so he doesn't lose his heart like he did when he was in college. And surely it's easier now that he can remind himself that he's not just hopelessly and completely alone.  
  
He glances over when he hears the door open to the recording area, when he sees Arin duck out and pluck the bag of chips Danny has in his hand and disappears again to the sound of Danny's protests. Brian realizes a second too late that he's grinning at the cheeky expression on Arin's face, at the very intentional look Arin shot Danny over his shoulder right before he shut the door.  
  
That it was yet another private moment he probably wasn't supposed to see.  
  
Brian looks back at the screen, feeling the vise in his chest squeeze a little tighter.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Starbomb writing sessions are fun. They're great. They're everything that Brian ever wants, especially since his nights are quiet and he hasn't bought a good book or a new physics journal in a damn long time. Brian, Danny, and Arin are always on the same page, always clicking, always getting shit done, and even when they're all up late into the night because they can't stop a fucking pun war, it's never something that Brian regrets.  
  
However, he regrets it tonight.  
  
Dinner was rough enough, Brian and Danny sliding into opposite sides of a booth while they waited for their food to be ready, and Arin deliberately choosing the seat next to Danny. The taste of sushi had been sour on Brian's tongue while he watched Arin lean into Danny, watched Danny giggle and elbow him away, watched Danny very regretfully accept a sushi roll from Arin's chopsticks after he'd waved it in front of his mouth for a good thirty seconds.  
  
Flirting. Incredible flirting. And there were times that Arin would shoot his eyes over to Brian like a concerned animal, like he was waiting on Brian to zoom down and rip Arin away like the protective friend he is. Trying to get clearance on his behavior from Brian.  
  
Brian spends the rest of the meal staring very determinedly at his sushi, only feels a tiny choke of guilt when the table goes completely quiet while they finish their food.  
  
Once they're back in Brian's apartment, though, Brian's already kicked himself in the ass. He's reminded himself that he's a fucking grown man, that Arin and Danny are too, that they can make their own decisions, that it's probably safer for some weird courtship to happen in his apartment than out in the general California area where anyone could recognize them and snap a picture.  
  
He's reminded himself that if he still feels like shit and lonely once they leave, hey, there's ways to take care of that. There's more than enough ways to find someone to get a quick hook-up with.  
  
The mere idea leaves a bad taste in Brian's mouth. He's not...he doesn't do hook-ups. He knows that. He's been that way since he first started dating. His sexuality is too tied to his emotions. He can't have a one night stand with someone and then never see them again. And besides, all he can imagine is some dude showing up to his place, promptly recognizing him, and asking to get a picture with him.  
  
What a nightmare.  
  
They've been at his place for an hour when Brian disappears to go make himself a drink. It's a night for a martini, straight up, extra dry. Maybe it'll help him stop being a stick in a mud, he thinks as he grabs his supplies, feels the way his face is already pulled into a sharp frown. He knows he's normally a conduit for Starbomb writing sessions. Arin has fantastic raw concepts for songs, Danny has a natural melodic intuition when they start experimenting with chords, but Brian has the mind that pulls brilliance out of Arin's concepts and lays down the first lyrics, that gives Danny a base to start considering his vocal line, his harmonies.  
  
They're not gonna get shit done without him, and normally he'd feel great about that. He likes feeling necessary.  
  
Tonight he sort of wishes Arin and Danny could churn out an entire album without any input from Brian.  
  
He tosses two olives into his drink and heads back to the sound of voices, where Arin and Danny are good-naturedly bickering over which synonym for 'dick' they should use in this Bloodborne song, but they both glance up when Brian comes back into the room and plops down at the keyboard. “Someone's having a party,” Arin teases as he flicks his eyes over Brian.  
  
Brian glances over at him. “And don't you wish you could join.”  
  
“Keep it.” He makes a face at the martini. “Smells like shit.”  
  
“How do you think he stripped the paint off the walls before he repainted?” Danny asks, but he plucks an olive out of the martini even as Brian makes a noise and bats at his hand. “Hey!”  
  
“Get your own olive,” Brian says before he sips.  
  
Danny makes a face at him. “I think I've earned this. 'The Beej' alone means that I've earned this.”  
  
Brian eyes him. “Years of friendship only worth it if you get to eat my olives?”  
  
“Precisely.”  
  
Brian's in a mood. He doesn't think Danny can see it, can even sense it. Danny's got a big heart. He'll put everything aside to take care of everyone, and he'll put his own needs on the backburner every single time. But he is dense as hell sometimes. Brian keeps eying him as he takes a long drink of his martini, and Danny eventually starts giggling, that nervous and tinny sound when he realizes that something is wrong, but can't quite place what it is.  
  
Arin clears his throat, and Brian looks over at him and quirks a brow as Arin stands up. “I'll be right back.” He shuffles out of the room, and the door shuts quietly behind him.  
  
Brian goes back to staring at Danny, and Danny blinks a few times before he speaks. “This is one of those times where something is wrong and I don't know what it is, isn't it?”  
  
Brian feels a little sting in his chest, covers it up with a chuckle as he looks away and starts laying simple chords with his right hand, swirling the martini in its glass with his left. There's something comforting about the reflexive shift of his fingers, how they make a steady and logical progression on instinct without Brian even having to guide them. “No, Danny,” he says, tone low and calm, “nothing's wrong. Don't worry about it.”  
  
“Is it the olive?” Danny presses. His eyes are wide and innocent, and Brian has to remind himself that this is genuine, that Danny's not trying to be beguiling.  
  
Brian holds out a suspended chord, feeling the prickle of the fourth on the back of his neck, and takes a deep breath. It'd be so easy. It'd be easy to say what Arin's leaving unspoken, to shove Danny into the thick of it, to initiate what needs to happen so Brian can get the fuck over himself and let his friends be happy.  
  
He lifts his hand off of the keyboard and scratches an itch on his wrist instead. “No, Danny. It's not the olive.” He swallows the knot in his throat and looks at him steadily, holds his eyes. “We're friends, right?”  
  
Danny nods slowly. “I mean, yeah, you're my best friend, dude.”  
  
Brian nods in response. “Then it's my duty as your best friend to inform you that when you took the olive from my glass, you put a hair in my drink.”  
  
Danny immediately bursts into laughter and leans forward. “I did not.”  
  
“You did,” Brian says solemnly, pointing. “I'm going to choke on this and die.”  
  
“It's not that long!” Danny hovers his hand over the glass, trying to find the best way to extricate his hair. “Dude, just, just get it and-”  
  
“I'm very offended and we need to rethink our relationship.”  
  
“Brian!” Danny laughs again as he finally gets a hold of the offending hair and nearly rips it out of the glass. “No, c'mon, we can talk about this!”  
  
Brian grabs Danny's hand. “Only a second honeymoon can save us.”  
  
“Oh, right,” Danny says, tone dry and distorted, “we'll drop everything and run away to Versailles-”  
  
“Santorini,” Brian corrects. “Kiss me.”  
  
“Ugh!”  
  
Arin pushes the door open, freezes, and all three of them stare at each other, Brian still holding Danny's hand. Arin blinks. “Am I interrupting?”  
  
Danny immediately throws his head back to laugh, taking his hand back, and Brian just flashes Arin a smile that Arin doesn't immediately return. It takes Brian a moment to realize that Arin's holding a bowl of olives, and when Arin comes in he sets them close to Danny before pretending he hadn't even brought it in the first place.  
  
Brian sips his martini, his eyes on Arin. Arin glances toward him, locks eyes with him, then quickly looks away.  
  
Huh. Okay.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
A few hours later, Brian does what he can to make Danny and Arin leave at the same time. Taking one for the team, you know? Brian has two martinis in him and he's warm with the alcohol, with the fondness he feels for Danny's friendship, with the brief opportunity he gave himself to appreciate Arin's handsome face with his hair brushing over his shoulders as Arin had leaned over Brian to see what chord he was playing while making song notes. He thinks he can handle the rest of the night, the knowledge that Brian's pretty much set them up perfectly for success.  
  
“Oh, hey, dude,” Arin says as he and Danny are walking out the door, turning around. “Left my phone, I gotta...”  
  
“Oh my God-”  
  
“Just go ahead, don't wait for me.” Arin waves him off, flashing a smile over his shoulder. “Gotta take a leak anyway, so just...”  
  
“Gross!” The door is shutting seconds later and Brian is left with his empty glass and Arin in his living room and a rapidly beating heart.  
  
He hasn't been alone with Arin for a while, and this is the first time Brian's been alone with him since he became aware of his burgeoning crush on him. Brian stares as Arin turns to face him once the door is shut, and Arin grins as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, tips it from side to side like it's dancing. “So, uh, I lied.”  
  
“Oh,” Brian says, because it's all he knows how to say.  
  
Arin shuffles from foot to foot, looking around, before he thumbs toward the couch. “Can I sit down?”  
  
“That is typically what couches are for,” Brian says.  
  
Arin sits. Brian stares.  
  
Brian suddenly realizes that this must be the time that Arin's chosen to ask about dating Danny, maybe to get some help or advice to do so, and Brian feels his heart sink in his chest. Shit, he's not prepared. He's not drunk, but he's not sober, and he has no fucking clue what he'll say. He sets his glass down a little too loudly, watches how Arin's eyes jolt up to meet his, and Brian stiffly crosses the room to sit on the couch with him. “You have something you want to say,” Brian prompts, because he hates beating around the bush, especially when what he hears is going to make him unhappy in the first place.  
  
“Uh, yeah, I...yeah.” Arin puts his phone away and kicks his shoes off as he twists on the couch to face Brian. “I've gotta talk to you. About Danny.”  
  
Fuck it. Fuck everything. Brian nods and immediately jumps in. “I think you should go for it.”  
  
Arin blinks. “...excuse me?”  
  
“Danny. I know you have a thing for Danny,” Brian says, watching Arin's eyes widen. “I mean, to be honest, you're not exactly subtle, dude.” Brian forces a grin and a chuckle. “But I mean, you know, I think you can probably get a piece of that, like, Danny's a good guy, and he clearly loves being around you, so-”  
  
“Brian, what are you talking about?” Arin asks.  
  
Does he need a fucking whiteboard? A laser pointer? “You. Danny. Probably fucking.”  
  
Arin gapes at him. “...I...”  
  
It is very rare that Brian gets the indication that he might possibly be wrong about something. He has a PHD, after all, and he's Brian Fucking Wecht. But while narrowing his eyes slowly in thought, seeing how Arin is staring at him, he gets that weird wriggling sensation in the base of his gut that suggests he might have possibly misread the entire situation. “...you do wanna fuck Danny, right?”  
  
Arin opens and closes his mouth, then breathes a laugh. “I mean, I'm here to ask you the same question.”  
  
The mere idea is so preposterous that Brian bursts out in a very genuine laugh, nearly bends at the waist with the force of it. “Me? Fuck Danny?”  
  
“Yeah?” Arin asks. He's giving a little smile, but it's clearly a mask, as clumsily applied as if Brian tried to put makeup on himself.  
  
Brian doesn't know what to say, so he tries “You know that Danny's straight, right?”  
  
“And yet you think he's gonna fuck me?” Arin asks dryly.  
  
“I'm pretty sure literally everybody in the world is capable of falling for Arin Hanson regardless of sexual or romantic orientation,” Brian counters just as dryly and maybe a little too honestly. He can still taste the vodka on his tongue.  
  
Arin's eyes are heavy on him, and Brian shifts on the couch, lifts his chin, assumes the most unflappable expression he can think of. It's...it's really fucking hard for once, because Arin is watching him, won't look away, and Brian wasn't aware they were having a staring contest, but...  
  
Arin finally speaks, voice low. “I'm still one hundred percent sure that you and Danny are fucking,” he says with quirked lips. “And you don't need to hide it, dude, it's just me, c'mon.”  
  
“And why exactly do you think that?” Brian asks as a counter.  
  
“Because you're always together, first of all.”  
  
“We're best friends,” Brian says. “Best friends hang out all the time. Next.”  
  
“Yeah, but they don't fucking hold hands and talk about kissing and stuff,” Arin points out.  
  
Brian snorts. “Says Arin. Arin who propositions Danny every fucking day when they're filming.” Brian shakes his head. “It's comedy. It's weird comedy, but for us, it's comedy. And you're just proving me right about you and Danny if you use that for a reason. Try again.”  
  
“Okay, so how about this, tonight, at dinner.” Arin points at him. “You got pissed off and uncomfortable when I was teasing Danny, and I didn't think about it at first, but it's because you thought I was flirting with him.”  
  
“It's because you _were_ flirting with him.”  
  
“Nah.” Arin grins. “No, dude, you've seen me with Suzy. When I flirt, it's not because I'm trying to push someone's boundaries.”  
  
Says Arin, Brian thinks with a snort. Then again, Arin is unaware he's talking to a sadist. “Okay. So you thought I was jealous?”  
  
“I mean,” Arin says, “if you and Danny were closeted about your relationship and some dude who already told you he was polyamorous started moving in on your man, then yeah, it'd make sense that you'd get jealous.”  
  
“Do you get jealous?” Brian challenges.  
  
“Me? Nah, not really.” Arin shrugs. “Suzy does. Suzy gets jealous as fuck, but no, not me, it's never been a thing. I'm pretty chill.”  
  
Ah, yes, of course. “So you're not going after Danny because you're worried about how Suzy would feel.”  
  
“I'm not going after Danny because I don't have a thing for Danny,” Arin says patiently. “And because you do.”  
  
“Except I don't,” Brian says.  
  
Arin chuckles. “Okay, so, if you don't, why have you been acting like a little pissbaby with a short fuse the past few days?”  
  
“Pissbaby?” Brian asks. “You can come up with a better insult than that.”  
  
“Don't feel like it. And don't avoid the question.”  
  
Brian scoffs. “We already covered it, though. I thought you had a thing for Danny.”  
  
“So you got upset instead of encouraging it? Even though you don't have some claim on him?” Arin asks.  
  
Any other night, Brian would've danced around the subject, but Arin's bare calves and feet are draped casually across his couch, Arin's smiling at him, Arin chose to stay here and try to talk through things with Brian when he realized something was wrong rather than just run because it'd be easier.  
  
The vodka doesn't help him either.  
  
“You know I'm gay, right?” Brian asks, eyes not moving from Arin's.  
  
Arin nods. “I think the whole world probably knows you're gay at this point, Brian. You've kind of got the gay but dangerous aura going on.”  
  
“Well.” He shrugs as casually as he can. “It's entirely possible that just because I'm not interested in Danny it doesn't mean that I'm not interested in other people.”  
  
It takes a long few seconds, but Brian can see the instant that Arin starts to consider the idea, how his eyes widen, how he sits back a little. And lo and behold, Brian gets to watch Arin's cheeks flush. Brian thinks fondly of how cute he looks with a little color in his cheeks, especially since it's such a rare occurrence, and as he considers the few times he's actually seen Arin blush, he realizes abruptly that it's all been in the past few weeks, and that it's all related to Brian.  
  
Oh. _Oh._ Brian sits a little taller.  
  
“Are you saying you wanna bone me?” Arin asks in shock.  
  
Brian snorts, nearly choking on his own air. “I may be interested in the act of boning as it relates to you, yes.”  
  
Arin blinks and laughs. “Are you telling me you've been pouting because you wanna stick your throbbing sausage in my-”  
  
“Okay, first of all, please, it's not a sausage, Arin, it's an erection, and an erection is a perfectly normal adult thing to discuss. And second of all, mine would fit terribly in a hot dog bun.”  
  
Arin flicks his eyes down to Brian's crotch by the time that Brian realizes his mistake and shifts. “I should keep that in mind,” Arin says with a grin.  
  
“And why is that?” Brian asks in a low voice.  
  
“Because I might be interested in seeing your perfectly normal adult discussable erection,” Arin teases.  
  
Brian's been slapped before, has been completely surprised by said slap. It's nothing compared to how shocked he feels from the realization that Arin has at least some level of interest in him. “That all?” Brian asks almost tentatively. “Just to cover all the bases, you're only interested in me sexually?”  
  
Arin chuckles and looks down, fiddling with his shorts. “If I tell you I have a big bisexual crush on you, you're gonna laugh at me.”  
  
With a flutter in his chest that feels pathetically juvenile, Brian leans forward enough to catch Arin's eyes. “Tell me, Arin,” he says warmly, “does it look like I'm laughing?”  
  
The current of heat that rushes through Brian the second they lock eyes is enough to suck the air right out of him. It's instinct that makes Brian lean forward so their knees touch on the couch, so that he can see the way the flush is spread over Arin's cheeks, so that he can see exactly how his lips are shaped under his facial hair, but as Arin leans forward too Brian remembers one very important part of this extremely sudden move.  
  
“Suzy,” Brian murmurs, touching a hand to Arin's chest so they both stop inches away from each other.  
  
Arin blinks, furrows his brow, his eyes practically glued to Brian's mouth. “What about her?” he asks in a rougher tone than Brian's ever heard before.  
  
“You need to talk to Suzy about this,” Brian says very matter-of-factly. “Right? Doesn't that sound logical?”  
  
Arin takes a deep breath, his eyes looking a little foggy, distracted.  
  
“Arin?” Brian prompts warmly.  
  
Arin jolts his eyes back up to Brian's and flicks his tongue over his lips. “It's...I mean, Suzy and I, we don't really talk about our relationships with other people much, like, it's a personal thing to us, you know? I don't have to talk to her before I do things, I promise.”  
  
Brian shakes his head. “Not the point. I work with you. I share an office with both of you. And if she's jealous like you say she is, she might not appreciate finding out that you're interested in me by seeing your tongue down my throat.”  
  
Arin laughs softly as he sits back on the couch, then sighs, gathering his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “She...she knows I have a crush on you,” he says tentatively. “Because she's my best friend and I had to tell someone. And, I mean, I assume we'd keep things lowkey in the office if we...if we _did_ start seeing each other, since Suzy and I aren't out as polyamorous yet, but...”  
  
It was a little presumptuous of Brian, he decides, just assuming that they'd start seeing each other, start kissing in the office, all of that, but the heart of the matter stays the same. Suzy shares Arin's life. Brian doesn't. He _could,_ but he doesn't, not right now. “Well. We both need to think about things anyway,” Brian finally says. He considers how much more he should say before he swallows thickly. “I...I don't do like...one night stands anyway. I'm really...I'm looking for a relationship right now, so that's, y'know, something you have to think about, if you'd be interested in pursuing that with me.”  
  
Arin nods, a very serious expression on his face, and Brian feels momentarily grateful that even though Arin is much younger than him, he's still far more mature than he could be. “Yeah,” Arin finally says. “All right.” He slides off the couch and stands there for a moment before he chuckles and shakes his head, looking down at Brian with sparkling eyes. “I'm sorry, I just can't believe you've got a thing for me too.”  
  
Brian leans forward to catch Arin's hand because it's there, because it's sweet, but when he brushes his lips over the back of Arin's knuckles he doesn't have any excuse. “If I hadn't noticed you, there'd be something extremely wrong with me.”  
  
Arin catches his bottom lip between his teeth as he curves his hand, brushes his thumb over Brian's cheekbone through his beard, and very softly murmurs “That's really gay of you, dude.”  
  
“How fitting,” Brian shoots back with a smirk.  
  
Arin chuckles, warm and affectionate, and he tugs his hand out of Brian's grasp. “I'm, uh, I'm gonna go before I do the, the kissing thing,” he says as he slides his shoes back on.  
  
“Probably better for everyone.” Brian stands up and follows Arin a little too closely to the door, touching a hand to the doorframe to bracket Arin in once Arin gets there. “Have I ever told you that your hair smells incredible?”  
  
“That's because I use Suzy's shampoo,” Arin says, and he's close, so close, and Brian unconsciously sways toward him just before Arin opens the door and slips outside. “Good night, Brian,” Arin says very firmly, intentionally, and Brian smiles as he leans around the doorframe and watches him go.  
  
“Good night,” Brian says a little too softly for Arin to hear, too mesmerized by the simple sway of Arin's hips in his shorts, and when Arin disappears into his car Brian shuts the door and rests his forehead against it.  
  
Okay, so. So this is officially a thing.  
  
Not a relationship thing, necessarily, he thinks as he goes to gather the empty bowl from his keyboard, to grab Danny's drink that he left laying out, and to put them in the sink, but definitely A Thing. Words had been said to confirm that there was a mutual attraction. They'd almost kissed multiple times. Arin just had to talk to Suzy.  
  
Suzy Berhow, who is apparently as jealous as she is gorgeous.  
  
Brian feels the sting in his chest as he considers her, considers how interesting a woman she is. She's dynamic, beautiful, kind, but she doesn't take shit, and if something upsets her she's immediately vocal about it. And that doesn't sound like an ideal situation for starting a potential office romance in the first place.  
  
Consider it. Consider Suzy deciding right away that she didn't like the idea of Arin dating Brian. Consider Suzy refusing to record videos with him or be in ads with him or even speak to him during panels at cons. She's a vindictive woman. She believes in justice both for herself and for the world, and normally Brian would admire that, but here, now, he's suddenly vividly aware of how that could turn on him.  
  
Besides, what if she agrees to let Arin try things with Brian, and then she changes her mind? How the hell is that going to work? It's possible. Maybe she'd say she was okay with it because she knew that it was what Arin wanted, because it would make him happy, but then decide otherwise. She could call or text Arin during all of their dates, making up excuses to bring Arin home early. She might refuse to let Arin ever stay the night with Brian like a normal couple, if they got that far. Hell, what if they hit it off really well and then Suzy decides she's not getting enough attention and that it's time for Arin to focus on her again? Arin would have to listen to her, right? She's his wife. She's the one that's going to spend the rest of her life with him.  
  
What if Arin fought her on it? What if they had endless fights about Brian?  
  
Brian flops on his back in bed and stares at the ceiling, heart racing from anxiety now rather than endorphins. No, that's the fucking last thing he wants. He doesn't want his friendship with them to devolve into anger and resentment. That's the sort of shit that ruins marriages.  
  
Fuck, what if Arin's crush on Brian ruins their marriage?  
  
Brian rolls over so he can bury his face in the pillow and let out a rough sound. This is absolutely unfair. He hasn't gotten laid in months. He should have had the freedom to just fuck Arin tonight, kiss him, hold him close like he deserves, and just...take whatever comes. But no. Brian has to be complicated. He has to be eager for commitment and terrified of losing his heart to someone who might just wanna fuck him once and then never again. He has to fall for the dude that has the most perfect wife on the face of the planet, someone so wonderful that Brian would feel devastated if he played a part in separating them.  
  
Nothing is ever fucking simple, is it?  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Brian barely sleeps that night, and it makes him feel like he's a teenager again. Letting himself feel so much worry about one little thing? One tiny thing that will probably not even affect the rest of his life? That's supposed to be for the days _before_ his PHD, not now, not when he's an adult well on his way to being fifty years old.  But he worries anyway. He worries how a simple confession without considering the variables might ruin a friendship, a career. He worries about Arin feeling like he has to choose.  
  
Ultimately, he wakes up late, takes less than five minutes to rinse off in the shower, and gets stuck in beautiful California traffic. He makes it to work half an hour late and just in time to decide that he'll talk to Arin, tell him to forget the whole thing, and let them get back to where they were before as coworkers and friends. They can do that. A little crush isn't worth ruining lives.  
  
“Brian!” Suzy's voice rings out through the office and Brian's heart stops. She's bright and grinning and waving at him from her desk, and as she hops to her feet and starts crossing impressive amounts of ground for such tiny legs at high speeds, Brian doesn't move from the door. “Brian, hey, I was wondering where you were!”  
  
His life flashes before his eyes. He's going to die. He's going to die, and his killer will be the happiest woman to ever wear black lipstick and dangerous eyeliner ever. “Hey,” he says tentatively, but the word comes up at the end, more like a question than anything else, more like a _”Should I call my lawyer and rediscuss my will?”_  
  
Suzy stops in front of him and tucks her hands against the small of her back, rolling up onto the balls of her feet, and drops her voice to a murmur. “We're getting coffee,” she says.  
  
He pauses. “Are we?” he asks, trying to remember if maybe they made coffee plans for today earlier last week, before Brian was well on his way to knocking down a well-established relationship with a wrecking ball.  
  
“Mm-hmm!” Her eyes sparkle and she flashes him a grin and Brian has never felt more like he wants to pee his pants in his entire life. “You don't have anything due early today, right?”  
  
Brian tries to consider.  
  
“Arin already checked. You've got all your videos done, they're all edited, you don't have anything you need to do for Twitter...”  
  
She already knows. She planned this. She planned an ambush. Brian stands a little taller, opens his mouth, closes it, then looks for Arin over Suzy's head.  
  
Arin's at his desk. He's drinking some water and watching Brian and Suzy without an expression on his face that would let Brian determine if this encounter is going to end with him fired or just mildly displeased. But then Arin flashes Brian a thumbs up, gives him a grin, and Brian feels the butterflies that kick up for a moment in his stomach – he's so fucking gay, how embarrassing is this? - before they immediately convert into nausea.  
  
“I would love some coffee,” Brian finally says, flicking his eyes back down to Suzy's. “Especially with you.”  
  
Suzy tilts her head to the side. “That's so sweet, Brian! C'mon, we'll walk.”  
  
He doesn't have to be stuck in a car with her or worry that she'll strand him at a coffeeshop, thank God.  
  
As they leave the office and head down the sidewalk to a nearby stripmall, Suzy chats nonstop about the upcoming convention they're getting ready to leave for later that week and Brian grunts and hums in affirmation when it's appropriate, because his mind is too distant to focus. Because here's the thing, Suzy isn't a bad person. She's not a villain. Brian adores her. He thinks she's bright and funny and fantastic and the fact that she can keep everyone so wonderfully on task is incredible. And the realization that he is literally scared of her right here, right at this moment in time, is actually hilarious. This is the exact sort of situation that he would love putting people in, the sadistic chance to watch someone panic in the back of their mind over what's going to happen in what's ultimately a very small aspect of their life in the grand scheme of things.  
  
Honestly, the fact that he's so worried is silly. It already lost him sleep. He can't have it lose him anything else.  
  
They go inside, they order their coffees, and they sit across from each other at a small table in the corner and for a long moment they simply stare at each other. Brian decides to be the bigger person here, to address what they're clearly leaving unstated, and he clears his throat. “Did you talk to Arin last night?”  
  
“I did,” she says, still smiling, and she takes a long drink from her coffee, head tilted for a moment so that Brian catches the intense amount of makeup that she's wearing, how heavy it is under her eyes. “We, umm...we actually didn't sleep very much.”  
  
Fuck. Already he's caused them shit. A little crush isn't worth that. Brian leans across the table and drops his voice. “Listen, let's cut to the chase, I...I think I might've made a mistake saying what I did to Arin last night.” He holds her eyes, watches how they widen in surprise. “I shouldn't have said anything to him about how I felt before I checked with you. It was really shitty of me, and I feel terrible, and I-I think it might be best for everyone if I just take back what I said.”  
  
Suzy's lips quirk. “I don't think I've ever heard you stammer before.”  
  
“It's the coffee,” Brian says immediately even though he hasn't had a single sip yet. “Caffeine fucks me up.”  
  
“I see that.” Her eyes hover on his cup of coffee, still completely full, before she rests her chin on her palm, her elbow on the table. “The thing is you can't just take back what you said.”  
  
He feels an ache in the base of his stomach, palpable regret. “I'm pretty sure I can.”  
  
“No.” She shakes her head. “What you said is out there. Arin heard it. I heard it. We know how you feel. You can't snap your fingers and take it out of our heads.”  
  
“But it's not worth it,” he stresses. “We're both adults here, Suzy. I know we can both agree that something like my crush on Arin isn't worth making the both of you fight.”  
  
She blinks, and then she chuckles. “First of all, it's not just your crush. It's Arin's crush too. It's the crush that you both have on each other. Because, like, I know you know this, but okay, whatever, even if you could make your feelings just magically disappear, that doesn't mean that you can make Arin's do the same.”  
  
“I can try,” Brian stresses. “I can be open and honest with him, and maybe after that he'll understand why it can't happen. We're not rivals here, I promi-”  
  
“Second of all,” Suzy interrupts firmly, using a tone that Brian would want to cut down under any other circumstance, and he fights to keep his mouth shut so he doesn't anger her further now. “Who said anything about a fight?”  
  
Brian stares at her. He gestures vaguely. “You said you didn't sleep. You're chugging coffee like nobody's business. You're wearing makeup.”  
  
Suzy snorts, then traces around the perimeter of her face in the air. “This has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with me wanting to be a certain kind of pretty today. And for the record, we weren't up late fighting.”  
  
“You weren't?” he asks.  
  
“No.” She rolls her eyes and takes another drink of coffee. “Arin wouldn't shut up about how great you were, and I indulged him because it's cute when he gets all excited about boys.”  
  
That doesn't sound like the Suzy Arin mentioned. Arin mentioned a woman who got jealous, not someone who'd sit up with him for hours just watching Arin pace the bedroom and talk about the new person he had feelings for. “It didn't make you jealous?”  
  
“Of course it made me fucking jealous,” she says. “I haven't heard him go off about me being that great for, like, weeks.”  
  
“So that's an issue,” Brian points out. “It's a thing. If it makes you jealous, then I need to back off and just-”  
  
“What you need to do is let me make my own decisions.” Suzy holds his eyes and inexplicably Brian feels shamed, feels the stab of it deep in his stomach. “Brian, I appreciate the fact that you're so concerned about my marriage, but...maybe you should let me worry about that. Not you.”  
  
Brian furrows his brow. “I just don't wanna mess up a good thing.”  
  
She smiles and reaches forward, patting his hand. “I don't mean to cut down your ego, but there's no way in hell you could do that here.” And she looks tired, she does, but she also looks serene in some odd way,  and Brian admires that after the fucking night he had. “Do I get jealous? Yeah. I do. If I had it my way, I'd keep Arin around me all the time. But I can't do that. He has his own life, just like I do. We're separate human beings, even if we've been together for over ten years. And that means that jealousy is something _I_ have to work on, not something that Arin needs to adapt to. Does that make sense?”  
  
Brian stares at her. He takes her in, everything that she's said, everything about how calm he is. “It does,” he says quietly. “It makes a lot of sense. And I really highly respect that.”  
  
“Well, thank you.” She nudges the hair away from her face, tucks it behind her ear. “Just, if I get jealous, it's not just...a personality trait or something. If I get jealous, it means there's something I need to talk to Arin about, okay? It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Might not even mean that Arin is doing anything wrong.” She waves her hand through the air. “I'm rambling because I'm exhausted, but you get the idea.”  
  
“Yeah. That's really admirable.”  
  
“Thanks,” she says again, then grins at him. “Are you just saying that because I'm gonna let you date my husband?”  
  
“Absolutely,” he says back, but she laughs, so he knows he can grin back at her. “Suzy, I appreciate you buying my coffee and all, but why'd you even bring me here, then? I was sure you were gonna rip my balls off.”  
  
“Eww,” she says. “No, I asked you for coffee to give you my blessing, that's all. It seemed pretty important to you.”  
  
“It was. I don't wanna overstep any boundaries.”  
  
“Good!” She claps her hands together once. “Then you'll be glad to know that if you do anything that deliberately hurts or disrespects Arin, I have absolutely no qualms with coming after you and telling you exactly why you're a piece of shit.”  
  
“Suzy,” he says, touching his chest in affront. “Trust me, I'm already fully aware that I'm a piece of shit.”  
  
“Good,” she says again. “Because I didn't wanna say it twice.”  
  
For a moment they just sit there watching each other, both smiling, and Brian marvels at how comfortable he feels around her again, how it took almost nothing for the nerves to slip away again. “I want you to know that I really like your husband,” he says. “And I really appreciate the opportunity to get to know him better.”  
  
“I don't own him. And I'm happy to see him happy too.”  
  
“Then I'll give it a shot.”  
  
“Good.” She flashes a bright smile at him, every tooth on display, and her eyes sparkle. “I'm glad.”  
  
  
~~  
  
  
They stay late that night, so late that the sun's already starting to go down when they finally head out. There hasn't been a lot of time to talk to Arin, but Suzy wrapped her arms around him when she and Brian got back from coffee, and she whispered something into his ear that made him smile and squeeze her arm, so it was probably a good thing.  
  
Brian makes his way to his car once they've locked up the office, hears the soft chatter behind him, and when he touches his door handle to open it a warm hand gently touches his. “Mind if I catch a ride?”  
  
Brian turns his head and sees Arin there, close, so close, eyelashes low, a smile on his lips. And really, what kind of man would turn him down? “Sure can,” he says. “Think I owe you a better ride than last time.”  
  
Arin lifts his eyebrows in suggestion, and they both laugh as they slide into his car.  
  
They're quiet as Brian pulls out of the parking lot. “Did Suzy tell you?” Brian asks.  
  
“Suzy tells me everything,” Arin says easily. “Told you there wasn't anything to worry about.”  
  
“Hey, I had to be sure. I didn't...I don't wanna fuck something up if it's a good thing.” He pauses. “Or if it has the potential to be a good thing.”  
  
“You didn't.” It's soft and reassuring, and Arin's tone is a balm on Brian's soul. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. It's awesome.”  
  
“I am in fact typically awesome,” Brian replies, and Arin chuckles, gently smacks Brian on the arm, and Brian catches Arin's hand before he can withdraw it. They squeeze each other's hands and subside into silence again.  
  
They don't discuss where they're going, which is probably great because Brian doesn't know where he's going until he's nearly there. It's a quiet overlook that's just overgrown enough to be a less attractive place to view anything, and given that it faces the sunrise rather than the sunset there's no couples there enjoying the view of the horizon.  
  
Brian parks and enjoys the simple feeling of holding Arin's hand, of feeling the weight of it, even of feeling the warm wedding band that's pressing into Brian's skin. It's lovely. It's easy. It's something he didn't think he'd get the opportunity to experience.  
  
He also didn't think he'd get the opportunity to experience one of Arin's farts at such close range.  
  
“This is the grossest thing I have ever smelled,” Brian says very seriously, frowning at him, but that does nothing to stop Arin from laughing. “Arin. Arin, I'm serious. I've smelled a lot of things. I've smelled a sweaty man's ballsack after a marathon, and it did not smell nearly as bad as this.”  
  
Arin catches his breath, shoots him a grin. “You've gotta be prepared, dude. This shit happens all the time.”  
  
“Then we have to get you to stop eating so much Splenda. Jesus, Arin, I know going low-sugar is important to you, but come on, what about my feelings? My comfort?”  
  
“Fuck your comfort,” Arin says almost cheerfully, then opens his door. “There, are you happy?”  
  
“No. It's not airing out quickly enough. I'm leaving.” As Brian climbs out of the car Arin laughs again, and Brian fights to hide his smile. He'd be lying if he said he didn't love this too. Brian leans on the hood of his car, and as Arin climbs out, apologizing through his laughing, Brian waits for Arin to circle around to the hood before he reaches for Arin and pulls him closer. It makes Arin go silent, and Brian feels a mild shiver of power, sweet and delicious on his tongue. “Is it all right if I kiss you?” Brian asks softly.  
  
“I would be really fucking offended if you didn't,” Arin says just as softly.  
  
Part of Brian regretted not kissing Arin that first time in his apartment, on his couch, against his doorframe. It felt like a wasted opportunity, a fantastic story to tell later. But now that he's kissing Arin with a fully sober head, without the taste of alcohol marring the flavor of Arin's lips, Brian feels a rush of heat straight through his body from head to toe. It's perfect. More perfect than he would've imagined possible.  
  
Arin lets out a soft sound against his mouth and it makes Brian pull him closer, tilt his head so he can deepen the kiss. Brian hears the trees rustle around them, feels the warmth of the setting sun on his skin, and he pairs it with Arin's sigh against his mouth, with the warmth of Arin's body that's suddenly pressed flush against his own.  
  
The way his body immediately responds is nothing short of embarrassing. It doesn't take two seconds once Arin's touching him, once they're chest-to-chest, for Brian to feel a stir inside of him, like static electricity just under his skin, and Brian shivers. Wants to pull Arin closer somehow. He settles for fisting his hands in Arin's tank top, and when Brian's blunt nails scrape over Arin's shoulders just outside of the fabric, Arin lets out such a sharp moan that Brian bucks his hips forward.  
  
Brian breaks the kiss, whispers a soft apology, but Arin is already raking his nails through Brian's hair and looking at him with pupils that are so dilated that Brian can barely see the iris. “How do you feel about sex on the first date?” Arin asks breathily.  
  
Brian blinks. “Is this a first date?”  
  
“Okay, fine.” Arin steals one, two, three quick kisses from Brian before he hums and pulls back again. “Sex before the first date, then.”  
  
Brian's mind has practically stopped. He stares for a moment before he remembers how to speak. “I think it's a perfectly novel idea,” he finally says, his voice already so rough with desire. “As novel as sex outside before the sun has fully set.”  
  
Arin grins. “Perfect.” And then he leans to capture Brian's mouth again.  
  
There's so many issues here. Brian doesn't have condoms. Brian doesn't have lube. Maybe Arin's being a little less literal than Brian is thinking? Or maybe Brian should take the lead before Arin can go somewhere that Brian can't follow, so to speak? Arin seems content just to kiss the life out of Brian, but Brian trusts him to say if something happens that he isn't comfortable with, and that's why Brian doesn't hesitate to palm Arin through his shorts.  
  
Arin sings out a soft moan against his lips, better than any tune that Brian's ever played, and Brian eases his tongue inside Arin's open, inviting mouth.  
  
It's been too long since Brian had a partner, he thinks as his fingers fumble slightly with Arin's waistband. No zipper to worry about, no belt, and it feels like it takes Brian's mind a moment to catch up to that point, to remember that it's just like handling a pair of boxers. By the time that Brian's eased his hand inside Arin's shorts Arin is laughing softly against Brian's mouth, and Brian turns his head and bites at Arin's neck in retaliation, busies himself with leaving a mark as Arin swears, whispers Brian's name, says it just a little louder when Brian's fingers find the smooth, heated prize they're looking for.  
  
Fuck, Brian missed what a cock feels like in his hand.  
  
Missed what it feels like in his mouth more, though.  
  
Brian doesn't realize he's panting until he worries Arin's earlobe between his teeth and whispers “I wanna blow you,” but he is, he can barely catch a breath, and that's criminal because all he can smell is Arin's hair, his clothes, his skin, and he wants to drown in everything that Arin is.  
  
He feels Arin press against him harder, a full roll of his body, as he whispers back “Fuck, yeah, no time like the present, huh?” He sounds a little frantic, like he can't believe this is happening, like every second is precious. Definitely a thought process that Brian can get behind.  
  
“You want me to blow you here?” Brian asks as Arin tucks his head against Brian's neck and groans against his skin. “Against my car?”  
  
“Put your car to good fucking use, Wecht,” Arin shoots back. “You think I made you buy this just to drive around?”  
  
Brian chuckles as he cups Arin's face with both hands, pulls his mouth back to Brian's so he can kiss him, tease him, keep him at the edge of what he really wants, and it's sweet, too fucking sweet, hearing the soft sounds that Arin makes for him.  
  
The mere idea that Arin would stand there and take everything that Brian gives him is laughable, of course, so Brian's not the least bit surprised when Arin hooks his thumbs in his own waistbands, eases them down just enough to bare his hardness, and takes Brian's hand and wraps it around Arin's cock. “C'mon,” Arin whispers. He nips for a moment at Brian's bottom lip, sinks his teeth in just enough that Brian can almost feel the flesh give. “Don't be a cocktease.”  
  
“You haven't seen anything yet, Hanson,” Brian murmurs, smirking just to watch Arin's lids flutter. But because he is a benevolent man sometimes, because Arin hasn't been fully introduced to Brian's sadism, his love for edging, his desire to watch his partner tremble with need and desire until they beg for more, Brian decides that today is a day for kindness.  
  
That, and Arin has an extremely distracting cock, and Brian's pretty sure that if he doesn't get his mouth around it right now he's going to explode.  
  
The ground is rough on Brian's knees through his jeans as he drops down, and he's gonna have bruises, might even rip a hole in these old jeans, but who the fuck cares? He slides one hand around to Arin's ass, where he can sink his fingers into the plushness there, and drags his tongue slowly up the underside of Arin's cock. He can taste Arin's sweat, can practically taste his pheromones whipping through the air, but as his tongue collects the fat drop of precum at the tip of his shaft Arin shivers and sinks back a little more against the hood of the car, his hand thudding as he presses it into the still warm metal.  
  
Brian can't see the road, can't check if another car is coming, and that makes this whole thing more clandestine and dangerous. It feels like nails are dragging down his spine until his every nerve is on high alert. It somehow emphasizes his senses. The taste of Arin's cock is so much more potent, and Brian probably shouldn't be loving it as much as he does.  
  
As Brian lays loud, suckling kisses up the base of Arin's shaft, he feels Arin's fingers sink into his hair, and it's pure instinct that makes Brian grab his wrist and press it onto the car but the fluttery moan Arin lets out right before a bubbly laugh that sounds suspiciously Danny-like tells him Arin might not be averse to being restrained. Brian's lips quirk at the edges. “You're lucky I don't have handcuffs in my car,” Brian teases.  
  
“Just shut the fuck up and suck me off,” Arin fires back, still laughing.  
  
“Oh, you wanna be gagged too?” Brian asks and watches as Arin bites his lips, effectively sealing his mouth shut for a moment, his cock twitching right next to Brian's cheek. “Ah, that's a yes, then,” Brian says, low and warm, and he feels Arin's wrist fight his hold for just a moment before his hand goes limp against the car again, before he tips his head back and takes sharp, loud breaths through his nose.  
  
Brian takes his hand off of Arin's ass so he can keep Arin's wrist held lightly against the car, and he cups the base of Arin's cock and guides it carefully into his mouth. He pulls back Arin's foreskin, and just a few absent sucks at Arin's head makes more wetness appear under his tongue, needy and desperate, and for a moment Brian marvels at how responsive Arin is, how practically wanton.  
  
How long did he want this? How long had he pictured Brian sucking him down? Had he guiltily touched himself to the thought in the shower before he and Suzy became polyamorous? Or had Suzy ever teased Arin about his crush while she rode him, fully in control? Because this isn't a man who's only just thought about this possibility, no, this is a man who is feeling his fantasies come true.  
  
It's incredible.  
  
Brian opens his mouth, lets his own saliva spread slowly down Arin's shaft, and he uses the wetness to start slowly jacking him off as he starts sucking Arin down. He looks up and sees Arin staring down at him with wide eyes, watching so fervently, and Brian purposely sharpens his own gaze, makes it hard and unrelenting as he locks eyes with Arin, and the way that Arin wrinkles his brow in focus and lets out a quiet sound is far more rewarding than it should be. Brian has the fleeting thought that Arin is going to get a boner every single fucking time Brian's in Ninja Brian mode from here on out – Arin hiding an erection on stage when Starbomb performs, Arin quiet and focused on the sidelines of NSP video shoots – and it's so hilarious that Brian has to force his focus back on Arin's cock before he starts laughing in the middle of blowing him.  
  
Poor Arin. Brian can't help that he's a terrible distraction, really.  
  
Arin is breathy and desperate in minutes under Brian's hand and mouth, how they work together in perfect harmony to drag those shivery little moans out of him, and any other day Brian might drag this out, but no, he's stressed, he's panicked, and he's waited for Arin, and Brian's a selfish enough man to want a visible confirmation that Arin wants him. So when Arin is choking on his own desire seconds later, spasming inside Brian's mouth, filling his mouth with cum, Brian is all too pleased with himself.  
  
Brian takes a few torturous moments to lick Arin clean in long, lingering strokes of his tongue, and he's fascinated when Arin doesn't push him off, when he simply sags back against the car and white knuckles around the edge of it. “Not too sensitive?” Brian asks curiously, running his tongue over Arin's head before he lets the foreskin slip back into place.  
  
“No, uh...” Arin laughs. “Very fucking sensitive, but...”  
  
“Ah, I see,” Brian practically purrs. He files that information away for later, for a long night torturing Arin under his hands and mouth until Arin reaches the edge of safewording out. Fuck, just the thought makes Brian throb painfully in his jeans, his own cock forgotten in his fervent worship of Arin's, and Brian comes to his feet, kissing Arin warmly as he reaches down to palm his own cock through his jeans.  
  
Arin breaks the kiss to murmur “I'm way too dizzy from my afterglow to blow you, dude, but...”  
  
Brian grins at the casual use of _dude._ And who says romance is dead? “Yeah?” he asks.  
  
“But you, uh...you can come on me, if you want.”  
  
A fissure of flames and electricity breaks through Brian, all localizing on his cock, and he squeezes gently around the back of Arin's neck as he kisses him again with a quiet moan. “Where exactly is my canvas?” Brian asks roughly when he pulls back.  
  
“Fuck, I, y'know, anywhere is fine, just...” Arin is flushed and breathing hard, and Brian wouldn't be surprised if he's trying valiantly to get hard all over again.  
  
Brian holds Arin's eyes as he touches the hem of Arin's shirt, eases it up an inch or two. “Here?”  
  
“Yeah.” Arin nods quickly, leans back on the car again, eyes unmoving on Brian's bulge in his pants, and Brian slides Arin's shirt up until it's at his ribs, until Brian can slide his eyes over the soft, round flesh there, pale and waiting for Brian to mark up.  
  
Later, he tells himself as he opens his own pants, fishes his cock out, gives a few experimental pumps with his hand that tell him he's not gonna last very long.  
  
“Wanted you to fuck me,” Arin murmurs. His tone is so heated, so needy, so at odds from what Brian is used to hearing from him that Brian has to close his eyes for a moment just to try and compose himself. “Hard enough that I would've gotten bruises.”  
  
“There's time for that,” Brian says, his voice choked. He touches his other hand to Arin's hip, feels how it pillows under his fingers, and fuck, he's just, he's so soft and gorgeous, and Brian wants to run his tongue over every inch of him.  
  
“Yeah?” Arin asks. “You gonna fuck me in your car next time? Make me ride you in the back seat?”  
  
“Fuck, Arin,” he whispers.  
  
“Or you gonna just shove me back there and put me where you want me so you can fuck me like a toy?”  
  
He can see it all so vividly behind his closed eyes, can practically hear Arin begging where Brian's got him bent and folded like origami so they'll fit back there, so that every thrust is brushing Arin's prostate until he's nearly crying in need. Brian grunts and dips his head, his hand moving all the faster over his own cock.  
  
“Take me here next time,” Arin almost growls. “Bend me over the hood of your car. Fuck me until I'm begging to come.”  
  
“Oh, I'll make you beg,” Brian growls back. “I'll make you beg for anything you want.”  
  
Arin laughs, and the sound wraps around Brian like a blanket, makes his hand stutter for a moment before he gets back in rhythm. “I'm a stubborn fucker, Brian, you're gonna have to work real fucking hard to make me beg.”  
  
“Mm, can't fucking wait.” He's a patient man. He'll spend a whole day laying Arin out and not giving him a single thing unless he asks nicely. He doesn't give a fuck.  
  
For a moment they're silent, Brian panting, Arin shifting restlessly under his hand, and then Arin asks “You gonna come for me, Brian?”  
  
He feels a hot tendril curl up his spine and wrap around his brain.  
  
“Please,” Arin murmurs, his voice dripping with need, with pure sex. “Please come on me, fucking make a mess, I want it so bad.”  
  
The tendrils tightens around his mind, squeezes, and Brian is groaning as he comes, opening his eyes to watch how he paints Arin's stomach. The clear liquid drops slowly down his skin, pools in the divots of his body, and Brian absently reaches to smear a streak further. He leans over Arin and kisses him, needing him, wanting him, and Arin lets him, reaching up to wrap his arms around Brian's neck.  
  
When they break Arin whispers “Isn't it nice to get what you want?”  
  
Brian snorts and nuzzles against his cheek, his temple, into the smoothness of his hair. “Maybe sometimes,” he teases back.  
  
He'd be content to be there for hours holding Arin, watching the stars with him, anything so he didn't have to take him home right away, but the lovely silence is broken within seconds. “So you've got a towel in your car or something, right?”  
  
Brian is silent. He intently nuzzles into Arin's neck instead.  
  
Arin seems to realize what Brian's lack of response means. “Don't fucking tell me.”  
  
“You asked to be covered in my jizz,” Brian reminds him matter-of-factly. “I never once said I had something to clean it off with.”  
  
“Oh my God,” Arin says, immediately laughing. “You're such a motherfucker.”  
  
“I take offense to that, I haven't fucked your mother once. Your father, though-”  
  
“Give me your shirt.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I'm getting clean somehow, Brian.”  
  
“Not with my shirt, Arin.”  
  
Ultimately Brian isn't really sure how Arin intends to win a scuffle when his shorts are still down around his ankles, but hey, it's an admirable effort.


End file.
